Screwdrivers: is there anything they can't do badly? Maybe not Welcome once again, to another manic Monday, The Reg's very own fun day, on which we celebrate the less celebrated moments of our readers' careers in a column we call Who, Me? This week's hero is a reader we'll Regomize as "Sylvester" who once worked for an IT provider in Austria. In the early 1990s Sylvester was project …
After years of replacing parts in desktops and lappies, I can wholeheartedly vouch for the fact that leaving out a few of those very-easy-to-lose screws definitely improves performance. My best result was a new motherboard where I misplaced 2 of the fixing screws but the PC went loads faster as a result.
"As somebody with an eternally messy office"
A friend once told me the following story:
"I went to visit a colleague in his paper-strewn office. His phone rang - and he couldn't find it under all the paperwork. Apparently the Health & Safety department later condemned his office as a fire hazard."
Let's just say that I've always felt an affinity to this line of the personality characteristics of J. Random Hacker from the jargon files.
"Accordingly, they tend to be careful and orderly in their intellectual lives and chaotic elsewhere. Their code will be beautiful, even if their desks are buried in 3 feet of crap."
It may look like like a 3 foot pile of crap to a casual observer, but my desk is in fact a highly sophisticated filing system, whose workings are known only to myself, and required documents can be retrieved faster than many a modern database is capable of. The bottom drawer however is more like a data warehouse, where documents containing scraps of info that could possibly be of use one day get stashed in a completely unstructured manner, with appropriately long retrieval times.
"The bottom drawer however is more like a data warehouse, where documents containing scraps of info that could possibly be of use one day get stashed in a completely unstructured manner, with appropriately long retrieval times."
*Curses under his breath as he flips through yet another folder of documents* "I know it's in one of these with the blue cover... Or was it the one with the yellow stripe"
It may come as a surprise to the guys born after 2000 A.D. but this also happens with digital file systems.
Even email programs.
With great storage comes greater ability to store tremendous amounts of trash you'll never need.
But I *know* that that one necessary file is in here ................... somewhere.
"It's the Time Team FS - No idea which pile the required document is in, but you know roughly how deep it should be."
And that odd shaped part at the bottom that you can't quite remember putting there and can't identify but since you kept it it must be important? Clearly it;s for "religious purposes" :-)
(Possibly an aid to sacrificing chickens or goats...or people!)
Many years ago I worked in an office where one particular engineer had an ... interesting ... approach to filing.
The "working area" of his desk was only an inch or two deep in paper, but at the sides went up to a foot or more. Every now and then management would enforce the clear desk policy and he would be instructed in very clear terms that he WAS going to clear his desk. So he'd open his filing cabinet drawer and dispatch the entire contents to the shredder - on the basis that if he'd not accessed it for 3 years then he clearly didn't need it. Then he'd dump the piles from his desk into the drawer. Desk cleared, job done.
Then over the next several years, anything he needed would migrate back to the piles on the desk. Until the next clear your desk demand ...
A bigwig ioce came to visit our office, so everything had to be tidy
I moved 1-2 feet of listing/octal-dump archeology to the desk drawers
The guy with me said "what have you done?! You destroyed months of archeology!"
I said "don't worry"; as soon as the bigwig left, I opened the drawers, put the archeology back on desk in the same order it was before
I used that filing method for decades but a couple of years ago I discovered the incredible worth of a decent fast scanner (in my case Brother ADS-2400N) coupled with a simple document management system (Paperless-ng / ngx)
Now almost every bit of potentially useful paper gets dropped through the scanner, automatically OCR'd and tagged (with an amazing degree of sanity) and now and then I have a quick check of the most recent documents on the web interface to make sure it's all going to plan.
Now, when I want that obscure bit of information / invoice / government letter I just switch to the pinned "paperless" tab in my browser, type the first few letters of a relevant word and it's immediately there. Working in IT one gets pretty cynical about the actual benefits of technology vs the claims, but this is one thing that has revolutionised my life...
"I just switch to the pinned "paperless" tab in my browser"
For about the last half century, every time I hear of someone suggesting that going "paperless" is a good idea, I buy a little more stock in Boise Cascade, Crown Zellerbach, Georgia-Pacific, Weyerhaeuser, Plum Creek Timber and Crane&Co (etc) ... I haven't lost a dime yet. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"Working in IT one gets pretty cynical about the actual benefits of technology vs the claims"
Indeed.
This is not investment advice. I am offering a testimonial. Consult an expert before investing. Etc.
Well I AM offering a testimonial - paper comes in to my office, gets scanned, shredded and binned. Only REALLY important things like birth certificates / driving licences go to the safe after being scanned.
Funnily enough it was my experience of dealing with my father's lifetime accumulation of paper documents (of which he retained basically everything) after his death which pushed me into doing things differently. Somewhat ironically, mid way through sorting out his affairs his office went on fire (lithium battery on a charger we weren't aware of due to the mounds of paper on the desks) and most of the actually important paperwork was destroyed - just mounds of illegible rubbish left. His electronic data was fine, despite the blackened exterior of HDDs and SSD...
I have learned to be extremely careful with irreplaceable parts while sitting at it. Not because the irreplacable parts are fragile, just because finding anything dropped is an exciting challenge all by itself.
I bought a Magnetic bowl for repairing my bike for this reason. It's so useful I use it whilst working on other stuff too.
I use steel service and food prep bowls from a restaurant supply store and my own magnets. The various shapes, sizes and depths come in handy when restoring all kinds of things ... and they double as parts baths, being solvent-proof. Note that while they are often advertised as "stainless steel", they are usually magnetic anyway.
If you want to play with somebody's mind then take a magnet to their stainless steel kitchen sink. Try it on the draining area, and then try it on the bowl. It will only be attracted by one area. I'm not going to say which for three reasons: 1- I can't remember; 2- Our sink is ceramic so I can't check; 3- I'm sure you'll have more fun trying it yourself.
A pair of rather powerful magnets on a metal bar which was once inside one of those aquarium cleaners. The ones where the abrasive cleaner inside the glass is moved by another magnet on the outside. The problem isn't getting stuff to stay on it. It's pulling things off again.
> because finding anything dropped is an exciting challenge all by itself.
Does anyone else find that a small screw or component, when dropped onto a floor (particularly carpet) will - even if you watch it as it drops - mysteriously warp through hyperspace before coming to rest?
The number of times I’ve dropped an M2 drive retention screw, seen it fall near my feet, but only found it, after much searching, somewhere yards away near the door or in one extreme case, out in the corridor…
I’m not saying it’s aliens, but we all know it’s aliens.
Reminds me of the time I did a pool break (UK 8 ball) in my local and managed to get the white off the table, through the door and half way across the road outside!
They started closing the door for my breaks after that!
-------------> What a decent 8-ball gets you!
Reminiscent of the (possibly apocryphal) tale of the fresh-faced newly elected MP who, talking to an older and wiser Westminster colleague, referred to “the enemy” on the opposite benches.
“No, dear boy,” came the response, “the Opposition are on those benches. The enemy are sitting behind and alongside you.”
managed to get the white off the table, through the door and half way across the road outside
Going back a few years, I would occasionally play 10 pin bowls with some friends - the local ones we used to go to closed down years ago :-(
Anyway, back then my shoulder was fine, so I'd seek out the heaviest bowl (16 lb) and worked on the basis that I might not have too much accuracy, but if I did get to the pins, they were definitely going. My friends likened them to exocets. I did have one occasion where I narrowly missed out on a strike, turned and walked back to the seats - only to be informed by my mates that the ball had bounced off the back of the machine with enough force to get the last pin.
One day we were playing on an end lane, and I couldn't find a 16 lb bowl. I launched a 12 lb one with the same effort, it went into the gutter, had enough energy to climb out the other side, over the side of the lanes, and roll down the walkway. At the end it pushed the door open against the spring closer, rolled into the back with the pin setter machines, and the door closed behind it. When we'd composed ourselves (i.e. stopped rolling around in laughter) I had to go and ask "can I have my ball back please ?" The lady said nothing, went and got it from round the back, and as she handed it to me just said "use a heavier ball".
Last year, when I was pressure-canning tomato sauce, I somehow managed to lose the little plastic washer on the pressure gauge (those of you who have used a presto canner will know the one). I looked everywhere for it, to no avail. Got down on my hands and knees with a strong light, and even asked the wife for a second set of eyes. Nothing. It was gone. Fortunately there is a shop that stocks them up in Santa Rosa (under 20 miles), so off I went ... but I had to purchase a whole new $20 gauge assembly, I couldn't just buy the proprietary 3 cent nylon (delrin?) washer. Got home, spent the next couple days putting tomato sauce in jars, and then cleaned up.
When I was done, I noticed one of the cats batting something around on the kitchen floor ... it was the missing washer.
At least I have a spare, known good, gauge assembly ... which of course means I'll never need it.
I don't know if it's a thing about plumbers' merchants, but my local one in Bristol is like that (willing to rip open a pack for one washer to help a customer out). I'm sure a lot of the reason is that they are nice (it's a family business) but also they probably, and rightly, reckon that any time someone in a 50 mile radius asks that customer if they know a decent plumbing supplier, that's the name they'll remember and pass on.
> a small screw or component, when dropped onto a floor ... will ... mysteriously warp through hyperspace before coming to rest? ... I’m not saying it’s aliens, but we all know it’s aliens.
Screws are attracted to the helical wormholes by which biros[1] tunnel back to their home planet, where they enjoy biro-oriented stimuli. Interrupted by occasional showers of components, lasting until Tuesday due to high pressure in the vicinity of Polaris.
[1] ref works by DNA
I learned early on, working in, er, "challenging" industrial environments, that if one dropped a small part it was best to just watch it fall. If one attempted to catch said part, it would invariably go careening through space and immediately be lost to view. Likely winding up in a high-temp or high-RPM or high-voltage location (or all three).
Ah, trying to cancel a reflex, that's an interesting one.
You drop something, the reflex is to catch it. The question is, is your conscious mind quick enough to cancel the reflex if the object you dropped was something like a soldering iron? Ninja points if you're quick enough to catch it by the non-hot end!
Ring doorbells have a battery case secured with a very small screw that has a tight thread - underneath, impossible to finger tighten into preliminary position and needing a hexagonal screwdriver head.. It is not coincidental that a) this guarantees the damned things will fall to the ground when trying to remove or reinsert them b) the screws have an uncanny ability to enter tiny wormholes in spacetime and leave this universe completely - once they fall they're gone forever from this dimension and c) spare screws are sold as part of a kit with an unnecessary screw driver and other equally unneeded bits that bump up the price
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61tMDdO+EaL._SL1500_.jpg
There are third party copies..
When at university (back in the 1970's) I spent a year as the photographer on the fortnightly student newspaper. This involved getting story outlines from the editorial team and then having a week to get some shots. All on B&W film and I was given evening access to one of the university darkrooms for all my processing. The one I used had two areas:
One was for printing and replete with an enlarger (that was usually taking the glass plates from electron microscopes, but also had a carrier for my 120 and 35mm film), plus assorted tanks and kit to process the paper. This one had safe-lights so it was easy to work in.
The other was for film (and glass plates) and totally dark. You had to work totally by touch (and remembering exactly where you placed anything) because, if you dropped or brushed anything onto the floor.
Luckily, my hearing got quite acute and many was the time I'd drop a film canister end on the floor (loading bulk 35mm film into cassettes was quite fiddly) but I was able, most times, to reach down to its exact position. Spatial/positional awareness needed to be quite good, as well.
Oh, and screwdrivers were mightily useful for prying open canisters...
Loading bulk film into cassettes in the dark? Why didn't you just use a daylight bulk film loader? Oops, sorry – I missed the "student newspaper" part. Presumably no budget for one, even if it's just a clever plastic box.
But they were a wonderful thing indeed – you could easily load a bunch of film cassettes in just a few minutes, under normal lighting, no faffing around. Not even having to open them first, if you left a cut leader using a film leader extractor beforehand.
BTW, still using a daylight bulk film loader( made in Canada in the 1960s) today. A bakelite box with a handle, a baffled light‑proof door to insert the film canister and a touch of tape to connect the canister's film leader with the bulk roll. Works perfectly even after 60 years. Fits the common 150‑300' bulk film rolls, much cheaper than buying individual BW film canisters. I believe newer options are available as well.
I once had to collect an Electrohome monitor from a bank because they were no longer subscribing to our service. If you have never seen an Electrohome, this was 9 inch monitor in a square casing so that you could stack them.
I got to the trading floor and could find the PC under the desk without too much trouble but the monitor had ended up on the neighbouring desk under a stack of paper and behind another monitor. That took a bit of work to extract.
Make a note of where the screw is, remove the screw, tape it to something solid and not loseable then move on to the next.
Ideally, use a marker to number the screw as you tape it in case some are of different shapes, sizes or genders.
In the age of digital cameras, including 'phones, you may possibly use pictures instead of notes.
Taking the time to do it right can save *days* of scrabbling about when you don't.
And how often do I take my own advice?
Guess. :)
Posting anon because this is truly embarrassing.
This weekend I needed to cut down a dead tree that was in our garden. All of the main branches came off no problem using a combination of an electric recip saw and a hacksaw.
As I got to the base the recip saw wouldn't quite get all the way through. It had however gone maybe 60% through. My gut instinct was maybe I could break this off.
Very long flathead screwdriver + wooden hammer
= Screwdriver stuck in the base of the tree.
I did manage to get it out with considerable effort and yes it was bent beyond repair. There's something wired into our DNA as humans that you can use these tools for literally anything requiring brute force.
"Very long flathead screwdriver + wooden hammer"
Respect, Sir! On two counts:
First the recognition that a screwdriver and hammer is a proper combo (Kamasa do some nice hammer-through screwdrivers as I hear you're in the market for a new one)
Second, that you didn't resort to mis-use of a power tool, like the endangered species who fit saw blades to angle grinders, or remover the safety guard from their circular saws.
At Christmas last year, I received a new strimmer for the allotment. This contained, in the box, various attachments alongside the usual nylon "blades", including circular saw blades. On balance, I decided that I'd like my feet to continue to be attached to the bottom of my legs, and they have remained in the box.
It did, however, also come with a fairly decent pruning saw, which is handy, because a previous tenant saw fit to plant a plum tree on a vigorous stock at the end of the plot, and this needs constant pruning with extreme prejudice to prevent it becoming a 30ft monstrosity. This would have been the correct tool of choice for the OP, not a recip.
FWIW
1) The "perfect pattern" screwdriver is an older design built to be be struck. The grip is formed by two bits of wood fitted either side of the tang
2) Up to the middle of the 20th C, in the UK the word "turnscrew" was used instead of "screwdriver"
Local power utility workers came out to our place in the country to trim tall-tree (conifer) branches away from their 17KV power lines.
One went up in a fibreglass-bucketed cherry-picker. He used a power tool that was a circular saw on a telescoping, insulated stick. No safety guards on that puppy! It had 360 degrees of unimpeded cutting edge.
I've got a brush cutter for my larger excavator. It's roughly a 70 inch Bush Hog. I had to install a diverter for the hydraulic system in order to be able to flow enough fluid to run it while still swinging the arm about, and built an expanded steel cage around the cab to protect the windows, and the operator. It cuts through 5 inch limbs like butter and leaves a trail of mulch in its wake. Handy for keeping old logging roads open, and scaring off mushroom pickers.
《= Screwdriver stuck in the base of the tree.
I did manage to get it out with considerable effort and yes it was bent beyond repair.》
So not the rightful king then?
I would have left it there as an object lesson or in case aforementioned regal chap turns up.
At least you didn't compound the felony by driving an axehead behind the screwdriver to try to unwedge it.
I assume the recipocating saw only reached 60% into the centre. The uncut 40% in the well seasoned centre always going to be a hard nut to crack.
Just a heads-up to whoever might find this useful ... One can purchase much longer than standard blades for recip saws. The longest I keep handy is 18 inches, but I've used 'em up to two feet. Dunno if they get any longer. Useful for cheap & cheerful timber framing, using old railroad ties for landscaping and retaining walls, etc.
Screwdrivers can do anything
I once read (pre internet days and can't find an online reference today) an article that said screwdrivers were invented before the screw. The first guns were held together with nails and frequently needed dismantling for repairs. Someone had the idea to cut a slot across the top of round headed nails and used a "turnscrew" in the slot to loosen the nail to make it easier to remove.
If true, then more support for the notion that a modern screwdriver has many uses beyond driving screws.
Sperry Univac mainframe testing. Needed to make sure there were no loose connections.
Tools supplied to everyone doing testing. A peice of plexiglass 3" x 5" x ¼" and a 10" long straight screwdriver. The PC boards all had plastic on the outside edge to maintain good cooling air flow.
Procedure was to run system tests while moving the plexiglass block along each card edge while repeatedly hitting the block with the handle of the large screwdriver.
This was quite effective. Although after awhile it was decided that due to the eventual failure of plexiglass blocks and screwdriver handles that special shatter resistant blocks and 1" rods would replace our initial tools.
Oh boy, excessive force and tech, i've got plenty of stories on that subject...
PFY me was helping relocate an office, and it was time to start moving displays. I grabbed one, and got stabbed in the finger by something sharp. Turned it around, found a DP cable properly ripped out of the socket with a bunch of wires from the forcibly disassembled cable still sticking out of the socket. Looks like I wasn't the first to try and relocate this monitor.
Got a couple about printers, for some reason most people resort to the "when in doubt, apply more force" mantra when it comes to paper jams, plenty of broken off retainers and other small components from people trying to rip out paper or improperly disassembling them.
The best printer story i've got has to be a ticket with the subject line "printer exploded". I have absolutely no idea how, but some troglodyte managed to rip out a bracket holding all toner cartridges, but in such a way that they made the printer room look like an abstract expressionism art exhibition. They somehow never found out who did it, i feel like it shouldn't be difficult to find the culprit there...
A lot of stories of various devices that were "stuck", and people "pulled a little harder", and they presented me with a completely disintegrated device.
I have a folder where i store the photos of these, well over a hundred of them from my short helldesk career.
My story is one of cables surviving what I though would be excessive force.
I was working on a ship once in the science lab. One of the team failed to secure down a monitor to a bench. Overnight we hit some rough weather and in the morning I entered the lab to see a big CRT monitor having fallen off the bench and now swinging by the monitor cable, somehow still attached and still working.
"I never figured why there are Phillips and Pozidriv and a bunch of other types of X screwdrivers"
Because the original Phillips design is prone to cam-out, which is more likely at higher torque and when not quite aligned. That isn't a common problem with the generally more fragile electronics and small equipment, so Pozidriv never really caught on, and PH continues to be popular.
I have to say, my experience is that PZ are still prone to cam-out and chewing the heads, and that is why the gods invented Torx screws.
"Torx are excellent for what you describe. But with their lack of a proper pointy end, terrible at making holes."
I'll take that many Torx heads are on machine screws, but there's also nicely share Torx woodscrews easily available. And the Torx head decking screws I used to build a medium sized deck were exceptionally sharp (even the own brand ones from Axminster Tools). And despite being stainless, not a single breakage, unlike the stainless PZ decking screes I've used before.
For some strange reason Cisco decided to use Torx screws on the Stack blanking plates and included an 'Allen key' for their removal with each switch... they now make the same blanking plates but with standard crosshead screws!
(16 complete turns with a bit of bent metal, times a hundred or so switches, is agony!)
It's madder than that. I seem to remember that Phillips are *supposed* to cam-out, as they were for use in factories before torque-limiting screwdrivers were a thing.
JIS are "fixed" Phillips, that don't cam out *when you use a JIS screwdriver*. Only available from exotic tool merchants at extreme prices.
Pozidrive would be great, if only the screwdriver manufacturers and the screw manufacturers would agree on the exact profile. A good Pozi bit with good-quality screws will actually stick in the head after using large amounts of torque. Normally, it's the usual chowder-fest.
"screwdrivers are for situations requiring a wedge."
Except for supporting the bottom of a door while you hang it. For that the proper tool is a chisel,at least an inch wide, bevel side down so you can adjust the height of the door by pressing your foot on the handle. Pro-tip from my dad who was a joiner.
You can do the same with most claw hammers, except you push the handle sideways with your leg. Useful when re-hanging a door; you're a lot less likely to have had chisels out when you haven't needed to install hinges, while obviously for any job the hammer(s) will be close at hand.
Probably... but tensions were high, most of the insides of all my computers had been stolen somewhere in one of the Moscow airports on their way to me, there was one flight a week, and the only thing to eat was flatbread, tomatoes, and dried horsemeat sausages.
To be honest, not one of the most enjoyable jobs I've ever been on.
Assessing that it would provide adequate leverage for the task, he wedged it in under the battery on the board and applied what he hoped would be enough force …ZZZZZZINGGGGGG! The battery came away from the board and flew from the UPS as if terrified at what had just happened
Sounds like Sylvester should have left it Stallone...
I remember my father telling me about Royal Navy rules
"If it moves, salute it. It it doesn't paint it"
"If it should move but doesn't get a bigger hammer"
These are not entirely consistent. and my father said he often had to get a blow torch to get paint off nuts before they could be undone!
Speaking of paint and the navy, I recently read a book on the US navy in the south pacific during WW2 and it mentioned that sailors were kept busy scraping paint and repainting to avoid the risk of the built up paint layers burning during combat. That must have been a real drag.
Having isolated and made safe a motor control panel, I instructed one of my serfs to check the security of the power cables whilst I attended something more suited to my technical skills. When I returned with the tea I found my boss had reviewed the serf's work and closed up the panel. As he turned on the breaker there was a resounding 'thump', 'flash' and darkness abounded. Some moments later the serf asked if we had seen his spanner.....
It transpired that for convenience, he had placed the spanner across the copper busbars and forgotten to retrieve it.... He never did.
As a student (in the 70s) I had a couple of summer jobs in a Dutch pickle factory. The 'superviors' were students from a local engineering college whose tools were a monkey wrench (adjustable spanner) and a large screwdriver.
When the production line jammed the monkey wrench was used to smash the offending jars of gherkins and the screwdriver was used to clear out the mess .. I don't think the students were actually allowed to use the tools to adjust the machinery.
As soon regonomial* (Sylvester) was revealed I could see this ending cat lives -= 1
This episode was almost reenacted when an "engineer" (ostensibly electrical but likely computing/software) pulled out a similar tool to open the battery compartment (showing an error condition) of a seriously big 3 phase UPS. I suggested that mucking about with high voltage DC is not likely to end well and that if he intended to proceed, to give me a fair chance to vacate the area. He decided discretion was the better part of (my lack of) valour.
I don't know at what DC voltages the battery chains in these UPS operate but I imagine at least around 100V otherwise the DC currents would be extremely high. I am pretty sure that shorting 100V with 12mm steel rod (aka large flat screw driver with 450mm square shaft) would launch molten steel all over the shop and would be a good day if the batteries didn't commit harakiri flinging their superheated guts behind the shrapnel.
* or regonominal although the OED has nomial from 1700s
On a previous job, early days on a secure gig for UK Government and building only just handed over for us t use.
One weekend, the electricians were working in the UPS Room and dropped a spanner short circuiting the giant UPS.
Electrics were back on for the Monday but lots of things weren't working or on the fritz, including the access card system.
Part way through the day someone decided the building wasn't safe until it was sorted so got a paid afternoon off.
A friend once worked in a motorcycle dealer. The shop was owned by an ex navy diver who was one day explaining the various problems encountered when repairing things in deep under water. He then went on to say a cold Chisel and hammer were the only tools required. The youngsters in the workshop expressed doubts if not disbelief.
So to prove it the boss completely stripped and then reassembled a motorcycle engine using only said hammer and cold Chisel. The blissfully unaware customer picked up rode away with a fully functioning bike next day.
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but at a previous place of work, I had a reputation of solving a lot of my problems with an angle grinder. Granted this was mostly working on cars, but I did once successfully install a graphics card into a machine with the aid of an angle grinder.
The recipient machine had plenty of space inside, but only one slot available in the chassis. The card's backplate only had ports on the lower half, but was two slots high. Removed the back-plate, used the angle grinder to slice it in two, reinstalled the backplate on the card, then put the card in the machine.
A scrapyard somewhere has one of my 12mm spanners. I was trying to extract a light cluster from my Ford S-Max, and the sound was more of a clang-rattle rather than a ping, but it was in the bodywork for a few years before the car was eventually written off. Either that or it dropped out on the road at some point...
When I used to do home visits back in the 2000s, I'd often tell the customers that we have a special tool or system for removing the dust from the innards of their poorly looked-after tower computers. I called it a "dust server". People would look at it and say "isn't that just an ordinary paintbrush?". Oh, no I'd say, "it's specially designed for removing dust out of fan blades and corners of the inside of a PC - totally different and nothing like a paintbrush whatsoever!".
Another unusual "tool" was when a giant hornet appeared in an office where I was installing a tower-style server. We had the side off the server at the time, so someone used the server case panel to swat the offending insect out of the office.
And on the subject of screwdrivers, I always use a flathead for removing those motherboard batteries (the flat, CR2032 kind). If a flathead screwdriver isn't hand, I'll use my keys.
Someone drilling a hole in the machine room wall to put up a hook for a fire-extinguisher. However, he managed to drill through the wall and neatly between two power cables. One flash/bang later, and the entire comms room (the other side of the wall) was without power. Also blew a couple of switch power supplies too....
Mind you, we did have to use a screwdriver, in the dark with just a small flashlight, to start up the main UPS generator because the switch was broken.
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Yeah - pretty much the same here, except mine is from the sixties. I cleaned it up to see what it looked like (cleaned up using a gas soldering iron, and done outside ‘cos of the fumes of burning paint), and one I got it looking nice and shiny again I went back to using it for prying cans open and stirring paint.
I've installed alarm systems. One way to test a glass-break detector is to whack its mounting surface with a screwdriver handle, and immediately shake a ring full of keys near its microphone. It takes the combination of low- and high-frequency (maybe ultrasonic?) sounds to trigger it.
Where does Posidriv fit into that, or is it just a different name for Philips?
Torx looks good. The self-tappers at my local DIY place are all + head, and they're pretty shit at screwing into anything harder than plasterboard or pine.
Looks like I might be able to get some Torx ones at the tat bazaar and, bloody hell, the word is "autotaraudeuse"? Okay, I've lived here 22 years and never come across that before (though, admittedly, I get my screws from a pick&mix and look at the screws not the labels).
strikes again
From a land that time forgot(no matter how much therapy I have)
My first electronics instructor used to be an aircraft mech at an RAF base near here, and of course they get a helicoptor in to have a broken instrument fixed, now the recommeneded way way to remove the entire console, disconnect the wiring loom at the 3 connectors, replace said instrument then replace console, however because all the instruments had been disconnected they had to check every single one still worked... which took ages.
So they noticed the rather handy 4 screws on the console to remove the offending gauge... undid them, noticed 2 small screws at the back, removed them ....... then disaster while putting the thing together... dropped the small screwdriver.... which went ping ping plonk behind said console. aircraft rules say every tool must be accounted for..... so they removed the console.... then realised it had fallen down between the inner skin and outer skin
Took more than 3 days to get it out in order to save 4 hours of testing..
also his sargent made him paint every kerb stone around the base to teach him a lesson heh
"Took more than 3 days to get it out in order to save 4 hours of testing.."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't a tool still have been dropped there with the whole console out, since removing the console wasn't enough to retrieve it? The attempt to save time was definitely unsuccessful, but it doesn't seem like it introduced a new way of causing a delay, and therefore not necessarily a reason not to do the same fast removal next time.
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